Gov't to develop climate change-resilient ARCs

LOS BAÑOS, Laguna, Philippines – Climate change-resilient agrarian reform communities (ARCs) will be developed by the government.

Spearheading the move is the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) through the DAR-SEARCA Capacity Development Program on Mainstreaming Climate Resiliency in ARCs’ Development Plans.

Supporting the DAR initiative is the Philippine government-hosted, Los Baños-based Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization-Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEAMEO SEARCA).

SEARCA is one of the 20 “centers of excellence” of SEAMEO, an inter-government treaty body founded in 1965 to foster cooperation among Southeast Asian nations in the fields of education, science and culture.

The two-phase development program aims to provide selected DAR officers with useful knowledge and tools on how to better adjust their ARC development plans considering the most pressing climate change issues and concerns in their respective localities.

The first phase was the pre-training online review of climate change, vulnerability assessment, and climate risk planning held last Aug. 22 to Oct. 7.

The second training workshop, held last Oct. 11-13 also at SEARCA, was a face-to-face training course that equipped DAR field officers, coordinators, facilitators, and agrarian reform beneficiaries with science-based knowledge and skills for mainstreaming climate resiliency in the development plans of ARCs.

SEARCA director Gil Saguiguit Jr. said, “Specifically, we hope to pilot through this training the process of mainstreaming climate resiliency in the development plans of six vulnerable ARCs and ultimately develop protocols/templates that would assist the department (DAR) in mainstreaming similar processes in the remaining ARCs nationwide.”

The training-workshop speakers included DAR Undersecretary Rosalina Bistoyong; Maria Victoria Espaldon, Rogelio Concepcion, Oscar Zamora, all of UP Los Baños, and Flaviana Hilario, weather services chief of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration.